Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng (born August 29, 1948) is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the 12 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was formerly the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and maintains activity in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. He is also a faculty member of the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Langer has received the worlds 2 highest engineering honors - the Charles Stark Draper Prize and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (each of which has been called the Engineering Nobel Prize). He is the only person to have received both of these awards individually. Langer holds over 1,400 granted or pending patents. He is one of the world's most highly cited researchers and his h-index is now (according to Google Scholar, 2026-5-23) 338 with currently over 481,000 citations. He is a widely recognized and cited researcher in biotechnology, especially in the fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. He is the most cited engineer in history and one of the 10 most cited individuals in any field, having authored over 1,600 scientific papers. Langer is also a prolific businessman, having been behind the participation in the founding of over 40 biotechnology companies including the well-known American pharmaceutical company, Moderna. Langer's research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world; maintaining over $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. He has been awarded numerous leading prizes in recognition of his work.
Background and personal life Langer was born August 29, 1948, in Albany, New York. He is an alumnus of The Milne School and received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in chemical engineering. He earned his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. His dissertation was entitled "Enzymatic regeneration of ATP" and completed under the direction of Clark K. Colton. From 1974–1977 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Children's Hospital Boston and at Harvard Medical School under Judah Folkman.
Contributions to medicine and biotechnology Langer is widely regarded for his contributions to medicine and biotechnology. He is considered a pioneer of many new technologies, including controlled release systems and transdermal delivery systems, which allow the administration of drugs or extraction of analytes from the body through the skin without needles or other invasive methods. Langer worked with Judah Folkman at Boston Children's Hospital to isolate the first angiogenesis inhibitor, a macromolecule to block the spread of blood vessels in tumors. Macromolecules tend to be broken down by digestion and blocked by body tissues if they are injected or inhaled, so finding a delivery system for them is difficult. Langer's idea was to encapsulate the angiogenesis inhibitor in a noninflammatory synthetic polymer system that could be implanted in the tumor and control the release of the inhibitor. He eventually invented polymer systems that would work. This discovery is considered to lay the foundation for much of today's drug delivery technology. Langer also worked with Henry Brem of the Johns Hopkins University Medical School on a drug-delivery system for the treatment of brain cancer, to deliver chemotherapy directly to a tumor site. The wafer implants that he and his teams have designed have become increasingly more sophisticated, and can now deliver multiple drugs, and respond to stimuli. In 2019, he and his team developed and patented a technique whereby microneedle tattoo patches could be used to label people with invisible ink to store medical information subcutaneously. This was presented as a boon to "developing nations" where lack of infrastructure means an absence of medical records. The technology uses a "quantum dot dye that is delivered, along with a vaccine, by a microneedle patch." Langer is regarded as the founder of tissue engineering in regenerative medicine. He and the researchers in his lab have made advances in tissue engineering, such as the creation of engineered blood vessels and vascularized engineered muscle tissue. Bioengineered synthetic polymers provide a scaffolding on which new skin, muscle, bone, and entire organs can be grown. With such a substrate in place, victims of serious accidents or birth defects could more easily grow missing tissue. Such polymers can be biocompatible and biodegradable. Langer is involved in several projects related to diabetes. Alongside Daniel G. Anderson, he has contributed bioengineering work to a project involving teams from MIT, Harvard University and other institutions, to produce an implantable device to treat type 1 diabetes by shielding insulin-producing beta cells from immune system attacks. He is also part of a team at MIT that have developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin to people with type 1 diabetes.
Awards and honors At 43 years old, Langer was the youngest person in history to be elected to all three American science academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine. He was also elected as a charter member of National Academy of Inventors. He was elected as an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. Langer has received more than 220 major awards. He is one of three living individuals to have received both the U.S. National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
1996: Gairdner Foundation International Award 1998: Lemelson-MIT Prize for invention and innovation 2002: Othmer Gold Medal 2002: Dickson Prize in Science 2002: Charles Stark Draper Prize (considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers). 2003: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement 2003: Harvey Prize in Science & Technology and Human Health. 2005: Dan David Prize 2005: Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research. 2006: United States National Medal of Science from President George W. Bush. 2008: Max Planck Research Award 2008 2008: Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific Research 2008: Awarded Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for developing innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release. 2010: Elected an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. 2011: The Economist's Innovation award in the category of bioscience for his proven successes in drug-delivery and tissue engineering. 2011: Warren Alpert Foundation Prize 2012: Perkin Medal, recognized as the highest honor given for outstanding work in applied chemistry in the United States. 2012: Wilhelm Exner Medal. 2012: Priestley Medal, the highest honor conferred by the American Chemical Society (ACS), for distinguished service in the field of chemistry. 2013: United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama. 2013: Wolf Prize in Chemistry for conceiving and implementing advances in polymer chemistry that provide both controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials. 2013: IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology 2014: The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Chemical Heritage Foundation selected Robert Langer as the winner of the 2014 Biotechnology Heritage Award for significant contribution to the growth of biotechnology. 2014: Awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work. 2014: Kyoto Prize 2015: Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering 2015: Named Cornell University's 2015 Entrepreneur of the Year. 2015: Scheele Award 2015: Kazemi Prize (Royan Institute) 2015: Hoover Medal 2016: European Inventor Award 2016: Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science 2017: Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine 2017: Named 1# Translational Researcher in the World by Nature Biotechnology. 2018: Named 1# Translational Researcher in the World by Nature Biotechnology. 2018: Leadership Award for Historic Scientific Advancement, American Chemical Society 2018: Inducted into Advanced Materials Hall of Fame 2019: Hope Funds for Cancer Award of Excellence in Basic Sciences 2019: National Library of Medicine (Friends) Distinguished Medical Science Award 2019: Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences 2020: Maurice Marie–Janot Award 2020: Medalha da Ciência, Highest Distinction for Scientists, Government of Portugal (Portugal's Highest Honor) 2021: Elected Foreign Associate, Chinese Academy of Engineering 2021: Biomaterials Global Impact Award 2021: Falch Lecture Prize, University of Bergen, Norway 2021: John P. Merrill Award 2021: BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2022: Balzan Prize 2023: Cornell Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award 2023: Genome Valley Excellence Award (India) 2023: Hamilton Medal (Queen's University Belfast) 2023/2024: Paul Janssen Award 2024: Kavli Prize in Nanoscience 2025: Ellis Island Medal of Honor 2025: Lipid Science Prize (Camurus Lipid Research Foundation - Sweden) 2025: Double Helix Medal with Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert 2025: Elected to Plastics Hall of Fame 2026: Named number 39 of the Forbes 250 America's Greatest Innovators [Number 1 of all academic scientists] 2026: Welch Award in Chemistry 2026: European MRS Award
He has received numerous other awards, including the 10th Annual Heinz Award in the category of Technology, the Economy and Employment (2003), In 2013 he was awarded the IRI Medal alongside long-time friend George M. Whitesides for outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation that have contributed broadly to the development of industry and the benefit of society. He also received the Rusnano prize that year. Langer has honorary degrees from 45 universities from around the world including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Oxford Universities and the UCSF medal. In November 2024, Chiba Institute of Technology awarded an honorary doctorate to Langer. Several awards have been named for Dr. Langer. These include the Langer Prize (AIChE), the Langer-Sandberg Mentorship and Innovation Leadership Award (National Academy of Inventors), and the Langer Professorship (Cornell University). Langer is featured in two different exhibits at Boston's Logan Airport. At terminal C (near Gate 8) in the exhibit '4 centuries of Massachusetts Innovation', Langer and Judah Folkman are listed for 'Cancer breakthrough-1st cancer blood vessel inhibitor'. In terminal E, Massachusetts innovators-Transforming the world, Langer is featured as "Revolutionary Biomedical Technology through Development of Controlled Drug Delivery Systems" (near Gate 12).
Business ventures Langer has been involved in the founding of many companies, more than twenty in partnership with the venture capital firm Polaris Partners. These companies include:
Success of these other companies and Langer's contribution has been detailed by Harvard Business Review:. Langer is a member of the Advisory Board of Patient Innovation, a nonprofit, international, multilingual, free venue for patients and caregivers of any disease to share their innovations. He is also a member of the Xconomists, an ad hoc team of editorial advisors for the tech news and media company, Xconomy. He also serves as a Scientific Advisor to Helus Pharma and Lindus Health.
References
External links Langer Lab: Professor Robert Langer Pearson, Helen (March 5, 2009). "Profile: Being Bob Langer" (PDF). Nature. 458 (7234): 22–24. doi:10.1038/458022a. PMID 19262647. S2CID 4399138. Retrieved May 27, 2015. Robert S. Langer fact sheet at MIT News Office Article on BBC News The Bob Langer and Polaris Company Tree From Acusphere to Momenta to Visterra Robert Langer: Exchanges at the frontier – ABC Radio National podcast Robert S. Langer publications indexed by Google Scholar